Only joking

[tinyjo]

It always surprises me that otherwise sane, sensible and adult people still make an effort to do silly things for April Fools day. The Today programme spent 5 minutes burbling about a new synth version of the Archers theme tune, Google are opening a moonbase and there've been various people posting about unlikely events happening in their lives. It's not that these jokes particuarly annoy me but I rarely find them actually funny. You get to the end or whatever and yes, it's a joke and... I don't know, perhaps I'm sense of humour deficient but I just can't really see the point.

If it was just that people did this and that was all, I would be able to roll my eyes and say "People, eh?" but what I do find annoying is people who take it seriously and get all angry and agressive. I'm sure the Today programme and the Archers editors will be getting plenty of emails complaining about the proposed new tune and then when the hoax is revealed complaining that they were hoaxed. I'm surprised that LJ even decided to have another joke after what happened last year and the amount of noise and fuss even in some of the comms I read like lj_biz is ridiculous. It's the sort of thing I can imagine sounding like a funny idea when batted around in the LJ offices but I'm surprised it seemed worth the hassle to actually do.

Thinking about it, I rarely find jokes involving deception or playing tricks on someone funny. I hated and loathed Jeremy Beadle with a passion. Perhaps it's the sense of betrayal of trust which sours it for me. I don't want to come off as lecturing anyone - I haven't been offended or hurt by any of the jokes I've come across this year - it's just made me muse once more about how much I don't get it.

Comments

[karen2205]

God yes. Beatle went beyond amusing/funny into something else - though I was fairly young at the time and more easily offendable, I still don't like the idea of people's property being destroyed/people being that upset by 'jokes'/impersonating police officers etc.

And like I've said before, most LJers need a good dose of Usenet. If they had that there'd be so much less drama. I can quite understand Brad et al wanting to wind up such easily provokable people....

[shepline.livejournal.com]

I only caught the beginning of that Archers them tune thing on the Today programme, and then I arrived at work, so I had to leave my car - it was so obviously going to be an April fool though.

Broadly I agree with you, although it was quite funny when The Guardian printed their entire G2 section as one mammoth April fool...

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

I agree about the hoaxing thing, the fundamental premise that people are supposed to be suspicious all the time and that it is funny when they're not is flawed. I even have sympathy for the celebrities spoofed by Chris Morris for this reason, if a celeb insisted on doing an in depth analysis of every request for help they would soon be denounced as being miserable bastards.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Thinking about it, I rarely find jokes involving deception or playing tricks on someone funny.

I think there are two types of April Fool's jokes. There are the ones that set out deliberately to deceive - which, I agree with you, are somewhat pointless - and there are the ones that are obviously fake, but take the opportunity to make a point. I put the LJ ones in that box; nobody in their right mind could have thought that the change to 'stalking/stalked by' was serious, but it made a point. It's not the admin's fault that LJ is full of people not in their right mind.

(Similarly, this is still making me giggle. Particularly the M John Harrison and China Mieville quotes.)

Oh, and your package arrived today. Thanks! It took me a while to work out why the CD wasn't playing in my stereo, though... :)

[mr-snips.livejournal.com]

there've been various people posting about unlikely events happening in their lives

In case of any confusion, I should probably say that the post I made at 12.24 this morning wasn't a joke:-)

(Though obviously the timing of it all did cause a few comments in the office...:-))